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Thursday, March 8, 2012

The ability to identify male Tilapia early on

The importance of identifying males in the Tilapia aquaculture is key to it being profitable. Hormonal inversion methods currently used to produce these populations have, however, many drawbacks. CIRAD has been investigating a genetic approach for several years and just discovered a way to precociously select breeders giving all male progeny via a gene present in fry brains. Gender control is a major concern for tilapia producers.

Farmed raised Tilapia

Males grow faster than females, which lay eggs monthly as of four months of age and stop feeding during the mouth-brooding period. The use of male monosex populations enables optimisation of tilapia growth in aquaculture, as well as food conversion. However, these populations are mainly produced by hormonal inversion techniques, which raise many contentious issues with respect to the environment and consumers. Read more ...